Vancouver saw a 22.3% drop in building intentions in June compared with a year ago, Statistics Canada announced August 7.
Total building permits in June were $595 million, down from $629 million in June 2013. This drop was driven in most part by a drop in permits for multi-family dwellings.
Robert Kavcic, senior economist at BMO, said due to the inherent volatility in building construction, it wouldn’t make sense to read too much into the large decrease.
“Basically the post-recession high was mid-2012 for Vancouver and they’ve been coming off a little bit since then,” he said, explaining this is particularly true for industrial permits.
“There was a really big jump in mid-2012. It’s almost like we’ve just come back down to more normal levels now.”
Province-wide, building intentions were down 6.4% year-over-year to $835 million. This was mostly due to a 9.5% drop in residential construction, which saw total permits issued of $522 million.
Across the country, there was a 20.1% increase in building intentions compared with a year ago. Total permits issued were worth almost $8 billion. The increase was due to a 42.4% jump in non-residential construction, with permits worth $3.8 billion.
